ORACLES Coordinated Missions

The Southeast Atlantic Ocean is a region drawing strong scientific interest. The ORACLES campaign will be complemented by at least three other projects sharing an interest in understanding the smoke and low cloud regime, but possessing individual foci.

The UK CLARIFY (CLouds and Aerosol Radiative Impacts and Forcing: Year 2016) campaign will bring the BAe-146 plane to Namibia during the same time as ORACLES-2016. CLARIFY will also instrument St. Helena island (15S, 5W) with additional radiosondes, a Doppler lidar, a passive microwave radiometer, optical particle counter, and will be joined by the U of Miami cloud radar. CLARIFY's goal is to improve the representation and reduce uncertainty in UK Meteorological Office model estimates of the direct, semi-direct and indirect radiative effects, focusing on more local features than the ORACLES campaign.

The DOE LASIC (Layed Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds; http://www.lasic.doe.gov) campaign deploys the ARM Mobile Facility 1 (AMF1) to Ascension Island (8S, 14.5W) from June 1, 2016 - May 31, 2017. Ascension Island is located 3500 km offshore in the trade-wind cumulus regime, over near-equatorial warm waters. Its deepening boundary layer, combined with the subsiding aerosol layer aloft, increases the chances that smoke will be entrained into the cloud layer. LASIC includes a large suite of both aerosol in-situ and remote sensors and cloud remote sensors. Multiple radiosondes per day will provide the first characterization of the diurnal cycle with and without smoke present overhead.

Third, the French AEROCLO-SA (AErosol RadiatiOn and CLouds in Southern Africa) project, based in Hentjes Bay, slightly north of Walvis Bay, has been taking detailed aerosol column and in-situ measurements since 2012, with plans to continue into the ORACLES time frame. These measurements provide a long-term annual-cycle local context for ORACLES.